


Tips for Women on the Run

by waitfortheclick



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (at the beginning), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Death, F/M, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, John Dies, Mary Winchester Lives, Non-Linear Narrative, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 04:52:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11844312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waitfortheclick/pseuds/waitfortheclick
Summary: A matter of chance.





	Tips for Women on the Run

This is how it goes: You meet a man, you love each other, you make a home together. As with any marriage, there are ups and downs, but you manage to carve for yourselves a little alcove in the world. Then you die. Statistically, he goes first, and then it's your turn. God decides that yes, it is your turn.

This is very much how it goes for Mary Winchester, give or take. Give a little bit more marital strife, and an itch she can't explain. Something in her bones telling her things she can't translate. Angels could never quite wrap their heads around the concept of muscle memory. Take away the husband much sooner, take away the normalcy of a stroke or a heart attack from too many backyard barbecues. Take away God. Give a creature with yellow eyes and your husband bloody on the ceiling.

She runs, because her body tells her to run. It tells her to stay away from the cops, so she does. A woman talking about monsters is a mother taken away from her children. Her body tells her to hide, protect her boys, so she does. She hides in the car and in rundown motels. She kills cockroaches, which makes Sam scream; impales them on toothpicks, which makes Dean laugh, which in turn makes Sam laugh.

She works in diners, learns how to fake a convincingly detailed resume. Coaches her sons to imitate the deeper voice of a previous employer over the phone to get herself clerical work. Receptionist work. Work. Packs up her family and leaves quietly when she breaks the arm of the boss who tries to rub her nipples through her shirt.

Throughout everything, stare longingly at the liquor aisle, and walk by. Walk to the deli counter and order sandwiches for your sons. Don't yell when they complain about having to leave yet another school, yet another town. Don't steal the pills in the houses you clean. Look but don't touch, close the medicine cabinet. Cry in the shower after you send your sons out for breakfast. If they're still gone when you come out, you get to scream into a pillow. Hide your wedding ring so you don't feel guilty about not selling it.

When her sons get older they go into business together. The sweet faced woman and her handsome boys, helping people move into nice new homes. Taking a few things here and there to supplement their income. When her sons get older, things start finding them.

Pretend you're dead. Pretend it was you on that ceiling, so you can be the one they wish had stayed. Perfect, serene, and unchanging on a pedestal.

Someone is lying headless at her feet, and a woman splattered with blood is staring at her. Her eyes are wide and she says, "Holy shit. Campbell? Mary Campbell?" She is, as it turns out, a legend. The Princess Anastasia of Hunting.

Be nicest to the girls who went to beauty school, the ones who know how to cut and dye hair. Or do it yourself and risk looking like you did it yourself. Bake cookies for the people who tailor thrift shop pantsuits; for the ones who wanted to go into the medical field and know how to stitch up a wound.

Once, when her boys were younger, driving on a cold night at the start of winter, Sam started crying. There was no one around, no cars, just snow falling silently on farmland. He pointed with chubby, clumsy toddler fingers and she slowed down, peering out the window. She saw a fawn stumbling after its mother, awkwardly limping and holding one leg off the ground. Sam wailed, because, "It's gonna die!" Dean looked at her helplessly.

"No, baby, no it's not. Animals are much stronger than you think! It'll probably grow up to have a limp, but it'll be fine." She promised to turn around so they could take another look, but it had already disappeared into the brush. Sam stopped crying eventually, falling asleep in his booster seat. Dean just stared out the window.

When your youngest goes off to college, don't ask him to stay; when your eldest stays, don't ask him to leave.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Margaret Atwood's short story Happy Endings. As with my other SPN fics, this was written like 5 years ago and just rediscovered and cleaned up. Many many thanks to B, my b-beta.


End file.
